


Consolation Prize

by treaddelicately



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, I use the word enemy here very lightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treaddelicately/pseuds/treaddelicately
Summary: It's the annual Krazy Kanoe trivia tournament, and Fitz is fully prepared to go home with the trophy for the fifth year running. The only thing standing in his way? Irritating, best friend-stealing, ridiculously attractive Daisy Johnson.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	Consolation Prize

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Florchis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/gifts).



> And lovingly beta'd by @[myracingthoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myracingthoughts/pseuds/myracingthoughts), who provided so much moral support when I was terrified to write Fitz for the first time. Couldn't have done it without her!

“Aw, come on, mate!”

Hunter’s shout, coupled with the sudden sensation of a wet crotch, had Fitz snapping back to reality. His friends’ laughter echoed around him as he grabbed a handful of napkins and mopped up the foam spreading all over the table and onto his pants.

“Fitzy, now isn’t the time to lose your head,” Hunter chided. “We made it all the way to the finals. Can’t go getting all soft on the bird now.”

Fitz paused dabbing his trousers dry to give his friend an indignant look. He tried going to Mack for help, but he simply crossed his arms and grinned in that all-knowing closed-lipped way that he had. Mother. Fucker.

“I’m not going soft on anyone. I was scoping out the competition.”

Hunter raised both eyebrows. “Scoping her out? You’ve seen Johnson every Thursday night for the past two months. We all know you’ve got a mad case of the googly eyes.”

Fitz stuttered and stammered and eventually gathered up the brain power to hiss, “I’ve not got _googly eyes_ for the enemy.”

Enemy was maybe too harsh a word, but as far as Fitz was concerned, bar trivia was cutthroat. After all, the Krazy Kanoe’s yearly Trivia Tournament was the biggest fall event in River’s End and Fitz’s team had won the last four years running. He and Mack and Hunter were a well-oiled machine, a perfect blend of scientific knowledge, pop culture references, and technical skills. 

Most years were easy pickings. People who signed up for a fun night out, teams who folded because they couldn’t commit to hanging around every Thursday night. Smartass freshmen from the local university who thought they stood a chance. All of them were barely a hurdle to victory. 

This year, though. This year was shaping up to be a problem.

Because of goddamn Daisy Johnson.

It wasn’t enough that she had weaseled her way into his group of friends and made herself right at home. She’d barely been in town for two weeks before Mack had given her a nickname and started asking her to bowling nights. Shortly after that, Hunter had recruited her for his prank war against Trip. And maybe if it had just been those things, he could have forgiven her.

The thing was, she was funny. And intelligent. And fuck all gorgeous to boot. There was no earthly reason for him _not_ to like her.

But then she’d gone and taken Jemma for her trivia team, and that was the last straw.

For years, Simmons had insisted that she wouldn’t get involved in his silly trivia shenanigans. Her words, not his. She’d given excuses about too much brain power on one team and treating everyone fairly and how she hardly had time for a weekly commitment.

But the second Daisy asked, she’d jumped ship and joined her team. Like a traitor.

Which was another reason on the list of hundreds why they needed to win this year. It wouldn’t do to let Jemma’s team beat him her very first year competing. She’d be insufferable about it for at least the next ten months.

So he couldn’t have googly eyes for her team captain. Because she was absolutely, positively, undoubtedly the enemy.

“Riiiiiight,” Hunter chuckled as though pulling his protests straight from his brain. “Whatever you need to tell yourself, mate.”

Mack squeezed Fitz’s shoulder before he could start on another indignant tirade. “Easy, Turbo. Why don’t you go get another beer before we get to the last round?”

With an annoyed huff, Fitz pushed away from the table and headed up to the bar to trade in his ruined beer for a new one. Davis was busy serving a few other customers so he had to wait, drumming his fingers on the bartop and rolling past year’s questions around in his brain to prepare himself for the final.

It was a bit like university, really, down to the stale beer smell and the music he didn’t care for. Endlessly drilling himself to prepare for tests, the adrenaline rush right before an important exam.

“Ready to get your ass beat?”

Fitz jolted, pulled out of the reverie by an all-too familiar voice. He turned to see Daisy leaned on the bar next to him, her eyebrows raised.

“I’m ready to claim my trophy, like I do every year.” He pointed behind the bar to the Wall of Valor, where the last four years of polaroids documenting his team’s victory hung for everyone to see.

She made a noncommittal, unimpressed noise. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Fitz raised his eyebrows and Daisy smiled at him, witty and flirty and cute as all bloody hell.

A lifetime of shrinking away from social situations flashed before his eyes in an instant. In another life, in another setting, he’d be terrified to talk to her. Would stumble over his words, worry about impressing her rather than arguing with her. But instead of skittering away from all of her raw confidence and overflowing energy, Fitz found himself leaning into it.

It was exhilarating, now that he thought about it. A nice match to every part of him that wanted to compete and wanted someone to compete _with_. Never before had he been presented with a challenge like Daisy, silly trivia tournament or not, and it felt fucking fantastic.

Plus, it didn’t hurt when she took the tiny little straw from her drink between her teeth, dimpling her bottom lip in the center. For a single moment, he let himself focus on her mouth and imagine what it would feel like to bite down on her pretty lips, to fist his hand in her hair while he sucked on her tongue, to hear the muted noises she’d make.

“Score’s even,” Daisy said, breaking him out of the fantasy. “And I’m taking home that trophy if it’s the last thing I do.”

Fitz blinked rapidly, centering himself in the here and now instead of a universe where he was pinning her between his body and the bar. “That’s not going to happen.”

She leaned in close, so close that he could smell the pineapple from her drink on her breath. Tangy and sweet and _fuck_ , that was not helping. 

“May the best man win, Fitzy.”

He sucked in a breath as he watched her go join Bobbi and Jemma at their table, trading high-fives and laughing like she’d already won.

So, sure, she was gorgeous. Any physical reaction to her teasing and flirting was only natural, right?

The more important thing here was that she was a gigantic pain in the ass. Even more than letting Jemma win and hold it over his head, Fitz couldn’t stand the thought of Daisy gaining bragging rights for the foreseeable future.

Losing was not an option.

* * *

“Breaks are for preparation, Daisy. We have to be ready for anything that might come out of this final question.”

Daisy rolled her eyes and flopped in her chair, pushing Jemma’s page of notes to the center of the table.

“Oh, calm down,” she replied, offering her glass when all she got was a reproachful stare. “I just sussed out the competition. They’re totally not ready, we’ve got this.”

“You mean you sussed out Fitz,” Bobbi pointed out. “You sure riled him up.”

Which wasn’t _entirely_ untrue. 

Daisy grinned and took her drink back from Simmons before she could suck it down to the ice. “Hey, I just wanted to gauge his mental state. Poke the beast a little bit.”

Bobbi leaned in as though they were telling secrets. “Is this some kind of weird foreplay for you?”

There was a strangled noise of laughter from Jemma’s side of the table. Daisy stared at Bobbi, flabbergasted and maybe a little bit offended.

“What? No! I want to win that damn trophy. Knock his smartass down a peg or two.”

Her teammate raised a single, perfectly groomed eyebrow in an expression of disbelief.

“I just think there were some eyes being made. Sparks flying. You know, all that Taylor Swift bullshit.”

“Sparks!” Daisy threw her hands up, nearly sloshing ice out of her glass. “There’s no sparks!”

Bobbi shrugged and leaned back in her chair to examine her nails. “Sure, Daze. If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”

It wasn’t what she needed to _tell_ herself, for crying out loud. That implied that she was hiding something, pushing down some kind of hidden feelings for the guy she needed to beat.

And, well. It wasn’t like he wasn’t cute. Daisy wasn’t above admitting that. Her eyes found him at the table next to theirs, settling down between Mack and Hunter and grumbling about something as usual. Probably her. Was he talking about her?

Not that it mattered. Because if he was talking about her, he was complaining. In that dumb accent of his, all high and mighty and sarcastic like always. Such a nerd complex. Fitz always thought everyone was out to get him so he had to strike first, to make them look dumb so he could keep on being superior. 

Well, Daisy wasn’t going to fall into that trap.

Even if he _did_ look disarmingly cute in that little knit beanie he’d thrown on over his curls. Her gaze lingered long enough to see him turn and laugh at something Hunter said, to see the way the line of his unshaven jaw caught the light. Downright lickable, that’s what it was. She wanted to drag her tongue over it and taste the scrape of his stubble. 

He’d probably say her name in that fucking annoying way, too, with that ridiculous accent, but maybe it would sound better muttered in her ear somewhere in the dark...

“Oy, if you ladies are done chatting it up over there, we’ve got a game to win!”

Daisy jolted, brought out of the fantasy by Hunter’s needlessly irritating shout. Fitz stared back at her, a barely-there smirk on his lips. Like he already knew he had the competition in the bag. Well, fuck that.

It didn’t matter how damn good he looked in the crappy bar lighting. Because he was still a stubborn, sarcastic know-it-all, and she was going to take him _down_.

* * *

The lights dimmed and Fitz sat up straighter in his chair, laser-focused on Koenig as he moved in front of the projector screen showing the current team scores. Everyone winced at the drawn-out feedback from the microphone, but their emcee only chuckled sheepishly as he stepped further away from the speaker.

“Alright, folks. This is what we’ve all been waiting for. The final round of the fourth annual Krazy Kanoe Trivia Tournament. Our teams are all tied up, so every point here counts. And our last category is… Harry Potter.”

Fitz sucked in a breath while Hunter let out a loud whooping sound. 

“Yes!” Hunter stage-whispered. “Pack it in, boys. We’ve got this one.”

Some of FItz’s anxiety about Daisy’s confidence started to lift and he grinned, giving awkward fist-bumps to each of his teammates. He’d have preferred something a little more scientific, being that children’s literature wasn’t exactly his forte, but their odds were undeniable.

“We’re going to put a photo on the projector,” Koenig continued, pacing and gesturing dramatically at the lit-up screen. “Of a scene from a Harry Potter film. Our teams will be required to identify each character in the scene by their first _and_ last name. They will also need to identify the Hogwarts House they belong to, and….”

He trailed off as the screen changed and the referenced photo appeared. Out of focus at first, but then it settled into a scene of a grassy field, broomsticks and more characters in gaudy robes.

“...their position on each Quidditch team,” Koenig finished. “Teams will have two minutes to write down as many answers as they can and will be awarded one point for each correct response. Points will be deducted for wrong answers—”

“Bollocks!” Hunter shouted.

“—and team captains will present their final sheets to me when time is up. Is everyone ready?”

After a beat where no one gave an affirmative or otherwise, Koenig started his timer. 

Fitz shoved the paper in front of him over to Hunter, who stared back at him.

“We’ve got a problem. I don’t know them all.”

Any of the shock he felt was echoed back in the look that Mack gave Hunter as well.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Fitz hissed. “You’re our Harry Potter expert!”

“Well, I don’t remember all of their bloody names!”

Fitz cussed under his breath. “Then write down everything you _do_ know!”

Panic threatened to set in and he chanced a glance over at the girls’ table. There wasn’t a chance they knew more about the Potterverse than Hunter, right?

* * *

The pen flew across the paper as Bobbi jotted down name after name, Hogwarts house after Hogwarts house, muttering to herself under her breath.

“Did you know she could do that?” Jemma whispered.

Daisy shook her head in awe. “Not a clue.”

Bobbi paused writing long enough to grace them both with an innocent look. “What? I’ve dated Hunter for years, you think I don’t know anything about Harry Potter?”

A grin made its way up to Daisy’s face, curving her lips and settling light and happy in her belly. A quick check over at the boys’ table revealed them to be a squabbling mess, fighting over the sheet over paper and pointing angrily at the photo on the board.

“Oh, we’ve so got this in the bag.”

* * *

The party was very much still in full swing, but Fitz didn’t feel like celebrating. In fact, he’d much rather have gone back to his place to sulk alone, but he was inconveniently out of booze at home and he _definitely_ needed to be plastered now. You know, to try and forget about the way his dignity had up and skipped right out the door.

Except of course he couldn’t be left alone here. Daisy, fresh from her photo op with Koenig for the Wall of Valor, settled on the stool next to his and hoisted the trophy onto the bar with a _thunk_.

“Whew, that thing’s heavy. Gonna have to find a nice place to display it. What do you think, Fitzy?”

She made a big show of it, tossing her hair and shrugging out of her sweater to use it to shine up the little fake brass Thinker on top. 

“Alright, you won. I get it, I get it.” Fitz rolled his eyes and tipped his beer back for another drink.

“Sore loser.” Daisy rested her elbow on the bar and her fist on the side of her head, her body turned towards his. And irritated as he was, he couldn’t help but admire the slope of her shoulder or deny the itch he had to fix her twisted tank top strap. 

Nope. Definitely not going there.

“You got a lucky last question.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” she protested. “I had a damn good team.”

“Yeah, well….” He drummed his fingers on the bartop and twisted in his stool and then adjusted his beanie when the movement wasn’t enough to get rid of his lingering discomfort with admitting defeat. “Congratulations, or whatever.”

“You’re adorable when you’re pouty,” Daisy said.

Something misfired in Fitz’s brain. He heard the words but didn’t quite register them for several moments, leaving him gaping at her like a fish flopping around on the shore.

“What?”

If she found his open-mouthed surprise distasteful, Daisy didn’t show it. On the contrary, she laughed and grabbed him by the front of the shirt.

“Oh, for god’s sake, just come here already.”

Then her mouth was on his and that short-circuited _everything_. Every neuron in his brain screamed for him to react, to do something more than sit there like an idiot while her warm, plush lips were pressed to his, but she stopped before he could do anything but set his beer down.

When he managed to gather himself enough to open his eyes, Daisy frowned.

“Oh shit, I totally misread that, didn’t I? Sorry, I thought we were doing a whole enemies to lovers thing here, I was digging it, but if you’re not interested-”

Fitz slid off his stool before she could finish, fingers threading into her hair as he kissed her with more force than strictly necessary. She made this little sound in the back of her throat, something akin to surprise, and it was enough to make him hold it for an extra second before pulling away.

“I am. Most definitely. Interested, that is.”

Delight crossed her face and then they were pressed together again, lips and tongue and teeth, and Fitz thought maybe it was the greatest experience he’d had in a bar by a long shot.

“I still beat you,” Daisy said between kisses, that smug note in her voice. “Fair and square, I beat you.”

Fitz groaned and pressed his forehead to hers. Her hands continued wandering, tracing paths down his arms and then over his chest, a total damn distraction from every word that his mind tried to conjure up. 

“Rematch,” he murmured, dipping his head for another kiss. “Next year, I’ll get you.”

She smiled even more wickedly then, a promise against his lips. 

“We’ll see about that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Flor!! I hope you enjoyed your gift! I wanted to give you a rivals AU that was fun and flirty. It was such a joy to write these two (because I don't know literally anyone else who ships them!). Thanks for being such a gift to the fandom. <3
> 
> And everyone else, thank you for reading! Please leave a kudos if you've made it this far and if you're feeling especially frisky, go ahead and drop a comment. ;D


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